


If you say you're okay (I'm gonna heal you anyway.)

by skyblue993



Series: Jonnor oneshots [60]
Category: The Fosters (TV 2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Confessions, Getting Back Together, M/M, Plot twist (not really but--), breakup makeup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-03 16:39:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10971198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyblue993/pseuds/skyblue993
Summary: *Jude and Connor sitting in a wardrobe T-A-L-K-I-N-G."





	If you say you're okay (I'm gonna heal you anyway.)

**Author's Note:**

> Title of the oneshot comes from the song "The cure." by Lady Gaga. (<3)

 

 

 

Connor's about to close the deal with the hot twink he's been warming up for the most part of the night. He cups the boy by the back of his neck, reveling in the unexpected gasp coming out of him when Connor leans in to whisper in his ear with a voice charged with desire to  _meet him in Daria's bedroom in five._  He stares as the boy walks away with a satisfied smile on his face and a soft blush creeping over his cheeks. He clears his throat and excuses himself as he makes his way through the crowd of people gathered in Daria's basement where's the party is in full swing. He meets her irritated gaze that knows perfectly what's Connor hiding behind that fake look of innocence on his face right before walking back upstairs.

Connor's about to get in the bathroom when he suddenly stops in his tracks. He tilts his head to the side trying to catch more of that noise that's coming through quietly, almost muffled, from the door at his left, which he knows, it's the wardrobe. Connor can't help the perplexed frown spreading across his face as he changes the trajectory of his path and comes to a stop to the infamous door.

That muffled noise sounds indeed nearer and now that Connor is just a few meters away from it, he can easily recognize it as  _sobs_. Someone's in there _crying._  After the initial moment of hesitance, he decides to knock on the door just to make sure he's not about to unconsciously open the  _dome of hell_  but the sound suddenly ceases. Whoever is in there, probably doesn't want to be found; Connor realizes.

"Hello?" Connor tries to make the safest approach he can pull off without actually invading this person's privacy, his hand idly clutched around the handle desperately  _itching_  to open the door. "You okay?"

There's a heavy silence coming from the other side of the door, then, a long exhausted sigh comes through. "G-go away."

Connor's heart stutters in his chest, knowing too damn well the sound of that voice. As soon as his brain registers  _who_  is hiding behind that closed door, bawling his eyes out, he doesn't even hesitate before bursting the door open under the incredulous, red-rimmed look the crying boy sends in his way.

"Jude?"

Jude gapes at Connor's presence in the small confined space for a long moment, just staring at him like he's trying to process that whatever he's seeing, it's actually happening, then, when he's made peace with his soul that Connor's _actually_ standing in front of him with the look of someone who has just punched in the balls, his mouth quirk down in a severe line, the Adam apple bobbing in his throat as he mutters, _“G_ _o away, Connor.”_

Connor's honestly grown used to Jude's hostile attitude for the past few years but he can't help himself. He misses the other side of Jude; The one that _loved_ chirping songs in the car with him on the car ride to and back from school. The one that melted whenever Connor smiled at him. He can't help but miss the noise Jude made whenever Connor kissed him like he was rightfully drowning in him.

He misses _Jude_ in its entirety but he also accepted the fact that  _sometimes,_  loving someone is just not enough or ar least, it's what he's been trying to convince himself since this very moment.

So no, he's not gonna leave,  _not again._

  
"Can I sit down with you?"

"N-no." Jude stutters, looking away from his sympathetic gaze with the same exact stubborn look he's told him to never talk to him again, not _that_ long ago. It's only been two years but it feels like it was just yesterday when they fell apart, probably cause Connor has never really tried to move on from his romantic attachment for Jude.

Connor shrugs like he's okay with Jude's response but then, despite Jude's pissed off gaze, he sits down anyway. Space is very confined in this closet so it's inevitable for their shoulders to brush against each other. He feels Jude go rigid next to him but neither of them says nothing about it. Connor takes the silence as an incentive to be the one to initiate the conversation.

"Are you okay?" Connor asks him, his gaze staring with wild interest at the door's handle. He doesn't dare to look in Jude's eyes, scared that fireballs would come out of them, but he can perfectly hear the indignant snort coming out of him as he counters with half bitter, half sad tone, "Do I look okay to you?"

"No." Connor admits, flickering his gaze to his own hand clasped in his lap. "N-no, I don't think you look okay."

"Well, you just answered your own question" Jude spits back,  _still_  bitter but sounding a little more enraged this time. Connor's not sure how to feel about that. It's a good thing that Jude's not crying anymore but how fair can it be to be the target of this unleashed anger? He's not the one who has hurt Jude..

 _Not this time._  His brain reminds him.

 _Shut up._ He internally fires back.

 

"Okay.." Connor doesn't let Jude's nasty tone discourage him from trying to make it better for him. Whatever happened it broke Jude apart and, if the first time Connor hadn't been there to fix it, well, he feels like he owns it to Jude this second time around.  

"Uh, if y-you want to talk ab--"

"Yeah, no. Thank you." Jude cuts him off with a sharp edge in his voice, shaking his head a little bit. Connor's witnessed that gesture long enough to be 100% sure that Jude's thinking something among the  _'I can't believe this shit._ ' Lines, right now.

"Well, I don't know what happened but--"

Again, Jude doesn't even let him finish his speech before turning his gaze, finally meeting his own sad eyes with Connor's. Shivers burst across his skin at the  _glacial_ glare Jude sends in his way when he asks him sharply, without half measures. “Why are you here?”

_"Excuse me?"_

"Why are you here.  _With me._  W-What are you doing here?"

Right.

_What is he doing here?_

"I'm--"

"Are you trying to redeem yourself by playing the part of the knight in shining armor that consoles the poor, broken-hearted boy sobbing in a filthy closet?"

"I mean, is not that fil--"

 

"What are you doing here, Connor? " Jude spits out, his eyes almost glimmering with tears at the _sole_ mention of his name. Connor feels like someone has just punched him right in the heart as the awareness that, once again, he's the one putting that miserable look on his face starts sending shoot of pain in his chest. He's almost tempted to get up and leave Jude on its own device instead of adding another, unwarranted, pile of pain on his heart but, once again, he decides to not follow what his mind screams. He lets his heart lead the way for once.

"I'm here for you."  _In any way I could make you feel better,_  he wants to add.  _If there's a way I can still make you feel better,_  he thinks with a bitter and heavy heart.

Jude lets his eyelids to heavily fall close as he sucks a sharp intake of breath, looking not quite convinced by Connor's good intentions but still, Connor notices, he doesn't kick him out so that's good.

"Okay." Jude exhales, finally.

"Okay." Connor repeats.

They sit there in silence for God knows how long just listening to each other's breathing until Jude (surprisingly.) breaks the silence with an unusual, _yet long overdue,_ question.

"Why didn't you love me?"  
 

It startles Connor like a punch in the gut even if it shouldn't have. He thinks Jude has never said that question out loud purely to make them a courtesy, in order to not make things even worse than already were. Although years have gone by, Connor's  _still_  not sure of the answer to that question. Not because of the nature of feelings for Jude but simply because  _he did care about him_  Fuck. He  _still_  does! But life has always proven to him that feelings are messy, especially at that young age when your whole universe turns in an emotional turmoil caused by first love and hormones. How can you explain to your old self that it's possible to find true love at fifteen years old? It was frightening, the way he felt about Jude. It was constantly floating in a bubble of happiness and if his parents taught him anything, was that bubbles.. well, they _burst_ at some point and the fall is what Connor dreaded the most.

Connor wasn't ready to hear those words when he did, despite knowing that he felt pretty much the same.

Sparks of joy and terror and panic caused his brain to short circuit, picturing fragments of imaginary scenarios where Jude dumped him, got tired of him or didn't feel the same way anymore and it did nothing but lacerate his fragile soul, turning the most beautiful thing it ever happened to him in his worst nightmare.

"That's not an easy question." 

"Just try." Jude tells him quietly, his voice sounding softer than Connor has heard in years. Well to be fair Jude hasn't been the greatest of conversationalists with him, lately but still, for a brief moment, it feels like traveling back in time. The thought makes Connor's eyes prickle with tears of nostalgy and, for a moment, he's tempted to let those walls to crumble down but _no_ , he decides. A chance to talk to Jude like this isn't going to happen anytime soon so he decides to make the most out of this moment where it's just them, Jude and Connor, isolated from the whole world.

"I--" His voice's trembling. Connor trails off on a sigh before clearing his throat. He needs to get his shit together and say this out loud like he should have done a lot of time ago. "Y-you were my first boyfriend." 

Except.... Connor's awful at explaining his feelings and going by the look Jude sends in his way, he must share the same sentiment.

"I know it hasn't been _that_ long since we've broken up--"

"Two years and two weeks but who's counting..”

Connor's eyes go wide in surprise. "H-have you been keeping count?"

"Of course I've been keeping count." Jude retorts with a roll of his eyes, sounding almost offended by such incredibly  _stupid_ question. "You broke me, Connor. I haven't told you that I love you because it was a rite of passage. I told you I loved you because I  _meant_  it."

"B-but w-we were so young.."

Connor can't explain to himself how everything felt so easy for Jude and how, apparently, it _still d_ oes.

"So what? Just because I fell in love with the first boy I've got together with, it doesn't make it any less important. It wasn't a joke to me and the fact that you still get underneath my skin even if I'm with someone else--"

 _What?_ _The boy that he used to smooch Jude's face in the school hallway (causing Connor's soul to rot with jealousy) dumped him?_

"T-That's what happened? Thomas dumped you because--"

Jude cuts his words off with a hollow laugh escaping his lips, his eyebrow arching up in an amused wince. "Oh my God, are you seriously giving for granted that was Thomas the one dumping  _me_? Well, let me break it to you.  _I did._ " Connor looks absolutely slaw-jacked by that info so Jude decides to add in a sardonic, high-pitched tone. "Yeah, that's right. I did. You wanna know why? Because of  _you._ "

Connor looks like he's about to pass out as he breathes out feebly, "M-me?"

So Jude dumped his actual boyfriend for his former boyfriend and Connor was completely oblivious to all of this? _What the fuck?_

"Yeah." Jude says, giving a small nod of his head while his gaze flicker from Connor's face to his own hands. "You, Connor Stevens, with that annoyingly gorgeous face and your stupid, perfect smile and your infuriating, ugly laugh. You. And I hate you so fucking much, you probably have no clue how much."

"I do." Connor really didn't. The last thing he heard from Jude was _to fuck off_ when he confessed his deepest feelings for him and Connor just stared  _in a slaw-jacked constipated look of terror_  on his face and, after giving Jude the silence treatment for two weeks, he saw him kissing a random boy in the school's hallway. So yeah, he got a clue about how exactly Jude loathed him, back then.

 

"You know what I hate the most about you?" Jude continues, Connor's eyes follow the motion of his bottom lip starting to tremble slightly, his voice thick with tears as he admits, "That, although it has been  _years_ , you still mean the same to me. Whenever it comes to you it's like going on a carousel ride that keeps going round and round in an endless loop of memories and pain, and it sucks so  _fucking_  much how badly I'd be willing to go back and do it all over again just to get one more taste of you so, to answer your question, I'm not okay. I'm fucking  _not_  okay and you, sitting here like you haven't completely broken my heart and trust and cheated on me with the first guy that offered his ass on a silver plate--"

Whoa.  _Hold up._

"Cheated on you?" Connor can't help the breathless gasp escaping his throat, his mind going one mile a minute at the fucking unfounded accusation dripping from Jude's mouth. "I never cheated on you! What the fuck, Jude? Okay, I blanked out when you told me you loved me and it was  _fucking shitty of me,_  I admit it! But accusing me of something so  _vile_  it's reaching a new low for you! I needed some time to think and I'm sorry if I hurt you with my radio silence but you're not a saint either! You kissed someone else in front of the whole school, in front of me! How the fuck do you think I felt?"

Jude's gone pale in the face at Connor's words, his voice comes out through a  stuttering breath like saying it over and over again could help dissipating the doubts forming in his mind at this exact moment. That Connor did cheat on him and he wanted Connor to give a taste of his own medicine by doing something as stupid as kissing someone  _because of spite_. "B-but you cheated on me at that party!"

"What party?"

 _What the fuck is happening?_ Connor internally panics as he watches Jude, with eyes wide and frightened, stuttering out. "T-The following w-weekend. Y-you-- Taylor told me he saw you kissing someone and t-then b-both of you stormed off-- I--"

No.  
Not a chance in hell Connor would have done that.

"He was the one kissing me! Do you want to hear the truth about that night, Jude? Okay, well, here's the last bit of my pride flying out of the window. I spent all night venting with this guy about how badly I screwed up my relationship with you and he was so nice and accommodating to me that I felt like finally talking to a friendly face! But then he kissed me, at some point, and I didn't push him away at first because it totally caught me by surprise--" Connor gives a long intake of breath, never looking away from his eyes as he goes on, "-When I realized that I had someone else's mouth on my own! I pushed him away and I fucking ran off!"

"I didn't--"

He knows Jude doesn't know. How can he know about Connor coming home and cry himself to sleep, that night? 

"I didn't know!" a cry of frustration leaves Jude as he retorts, "I didn't know! Y-you wouldn't talk to me and I.. I didn't know if w-we were still together o-or y-you broke up with me! I mean, try putting yourself in  _my_  shoes! If your best friend told you she saw _me_  kissing a random stranger, under those circumstances, what would you have thought? I messed up when I kissed someone because of spite but you also messed up the moment you decided to shut me out of your world! You made me feel like I was _nothing_  to you! So yeah okay, my response wasn't mature, at all, but if it was true, and I didn't think it was until this day, why didn't you talk to me? Why didn't you tell anything? Why didn't you fight for us?"

"I thought you chose someone else. Someone better."

That's the harsh truth coming out. When Jude kissed that guy in front of him, a part of him told him that it was about to happen, eventually. Jude would have found someone better than him and so he did. (apparently.)

"Better than _who_? Than you?"

"Yeah."

"That was what it was all about, Connor." Jude tells him, his eyes flickering slowly to Connor's hand. For a moment he kind of hopes for Jude to reach for it but it's still there idle and cold when Jude goes on a quiet breath, "There has never been anyone that would have made me happier than you did."

Connor sucks a short intake of breath as words spill down Jude's mouth, hitting him like a bucket of ice in the face.

"L-Let's-- huh, how about w-we try again?"

He should have probably said something more romantic and Jude smiles slightly, knowing how awful Connor is at making tear-jerking cheesy speeches. It doesn't change the fact that he wants to, desperately so. Now that he's finally aware of what Jude's heart's been holding all these years, he wants to fix it. _Fix them._  

Jude's eyes go wide in shock, his lip trembling like he's holding back tears to spill down his eyes. He does a terrible job at it. He, indeed, starts crying as soon as Connor fights back all his fears and takes his hand into his own. It's kind of strange, to finally be allowed to touch skin after all this time. It's new and familiar at the same time.

"I'd be lying if I said I haven't waited for this moment for the past two years.." Jude admits with a low voice and a hint of a smile slowly blossoming across his features. It's hard for Connor to not let all the tension leave his body and close his eyes as he slowly leans in towards Jude's face. He's about to finally touch the same lips that caused all the surrounded world to fade away whenever they touched when Jude's fingers come to gently rest on his cheek.

"Connor.." He says his name like the first time they kissed and every single time after that. The sound alone is capable of making him feel butterflies fluttering wild in his stomach. 

"Yes?"

It comes out as a feeble breath but Connor's still able to hear those words, loud and clear in his head when he finally touches those lips with his own.

“Let's not hurt each other again. Never. Never, again. Please.”

Connor's positive they won't and if they do, because a perfect relationship just doesn't exist, they'll be able to overcome every issue coming their way. They're older now and Connor's not an insecure kid anymore. He'll take care of Jude. Always.  _Whatever it takes._

They've found their way back to each other and nothing matters more than taste these lips and trail his fingers in Jude's hair, gently caressing the short strand at the base of his neck not realizing how much he's missed those until the precise moment their mouths crash in a kiss filled with repressed feelings, so much desperation and  _relief_  that make them both breathless within mere seconds.

“Do we need to go?”

Connor smiles at the way Jude's softly catching his breath with his mouth still pressed against his own, like he can't even think of pulling away. _Not yet._

“I don't think we'll be missing out anything.” Connor chuckles, his eyes slowly fluttering open to witness Jude's awed expression growing wider on his face.

“Okay then.”

Connor takes it as an invitation (filled with impatience.) to kiss him again so he does just that.

 

 

(Plot twist: They keep kissing until they are both naked and completely drained out of energies and fall asleep in Daria's wardrobe. They are found by Daria's mom, looking for her fur coat currently being used as a blanket over their naked bodies.) (I am kidding ofc. (AM I?) )

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  [Follow me on twitter](https://twitter.com/en_sky9) or [Tumblr](https://skyblue993.tumblr.com/)
> 
> Feedback is always appreciated :)


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